10/22/2014
Last night, I had dinner with the
Vice Consul to the American Embassy. It was fun and it is always nice when the
Embassy people come to visit and take us out to dinner. We all live such
interesting, crazy lives, the stories are always lively and entertaining. Will
and I then went back to my apartment to make Chicken Pot Pie for my
counterpart, Ariuk, whose wife just had their third baby girl. He had told me
how overwhelmed he was trying to cook for his whole family, so Will had the
great idea to make them a meal, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it. It was
the first time I have ever made chicken pot pie, and it was surprisingly easier
than I thought, I might even make it for myself one of these days.
On Monday night, my friend Gerlee
came over to give me birthday presents. She brought Airag (fermented mares’
milk, which I actually love) and the most thoughtful gift. I love coffee, so
she bought me this giant coffee mug, which she had pictures of me printed on
it, from when I visited her family’s home in the countryside. There is pictures
of us hiking, herding animals, milking cows and a huge picture of me holding
the hunting eagle. It was so extremely nice of her!
Since being back at work, I have
been working on coming up with training programs for the soum doctors on the 21
topics the Health Ministry put out as their new campaign for the year. 21
healthy behavior changes, so my director put me in charge of overseeing the
program in our Health Department. I have to come up with trainings and
community activities for each, which will keep me busy for the next couple
months. Also, she wants me to work with the hospital to help develop a better training curriculum for their nurses. On top
of those two very large projects, I am putting on a Halloween party at one of
the local schools and directing a Christmas Pageant at that school. Not to
mention, I am currently in the middle of applying for grad school and studying
to take the GRE next month. So these
next couple months, I will be in lockdown. Work and study, 24/7. Although, I am
still making sure I go for runs or hikes every morning before the temperatures
get to low!
11/5/2014
Last
Thursday, October 30th, was my site mate’s birthday. We went out to
dinner with his counterparts. The female teachers he works with are hilarious
and by the end of the night, they were telling us dirty jokes about Mongolian
men. At first, we didn’t understand what the one was talking about but after
repeating the joke a second and third time, it was clear what she was saying.
We were all shocked but laughing hysterically, I have never heard a Mongolian
woman talk like that. It was great. We, Peace Corps volunteers, then went back
to my place to hang out more and eat the cake Rebecca and I made for Patrick,
but since we all had to work in the morning, it was an early night.
On
Halloween, Rebecca and I went to School #2 to help judge their English
Halloween Competition. The English teachers put together a Halloween themed
English completion. Each tenth grade class had to prepare and preform in
English a greeting, song, dance and Halloween skit. Rebecca and I were supposed
to be in charge of picking a winner, but they ended up judging themselves and
we just had to speak about how Halloween is celebrated in the United States
during the opening ceremony and then give our comments about the performances
during the closing ceremony. We just got to sit back and enjoy the creative
dances and skits! The kids did a great job and their make-up and costumes were
down right terrifying. I have no idea how they did it, but there a couple
students who actually gave me a weird feeling looking at them. The faces they
painted on were insane! Two of the sixth grade classes were invited to watch,
they were too cute. They performed an English song and were wearing homemade
masks. All the students really got into the Halloween spirit and it was so much
fun to be a part of it!
Halloween
night everyone came back over to my house to watch Paranormal Activity and eat
the left over cake. We got a call from our Korean and Japanese friends who
volunteer in our town, saying that they were having a Halloween Party and
wanted us to join them. So after the movie, we walked over to one of the
apartments. When we opened the door we walked in to an apartment that had
pumpkins and bats hanging from the ceiling and a giant Halloween poster on the
wall. There was a table full of food and drinks in the middle of the room, and
they were all busy face painting each other. My face was painted like a
butterfly. We listened to music and talked in a mix of English and Mongolian,
most of the time in Mongolian, since that was the common language among us all,
till the early morning. It was a great night with awesome friends! I love when
we all get together.
Saturday
morning was spent cleaning my apartment and doing my laundry. We all met for
lunch and to watch Hocus Pocus during the afternoon. Then Rebecca and I left to
go to the market to shop for the dinner we were cooking for Patrick’s birthday
dinner. We had decided on beef with roasted potatoes and carrots, with a side
dish that was made of cabbage and onions. We cooked dinner at Jen’s apartment,
since I don’t have a stove. The theme of the dinner party was Murder Mystery.
We had found a ready-made murder mystery story for the party that we were going
to act out and try to solve after dinner. We had all dressed up, had props and
booklets to get into character for the night. There were six rounds of clues
and questioning. By the end of the sixth round we all still had no idea who
killed the character and we were all wrong when it came time for us to guess
who did it. It was awesome and I am so glad we put it together and the food
turned out great as well. I want to throw a murder mystery themed dinner party
when I get back to the States. The night eventually ended with full out dancing
to Beyonce videos, like every night does that we are all together. It’s like
our thing.
Sunday
morning, I went for a nice hike and then met up with my friend Gerlee. I went
to her grandmother’s ger for lunch/dinner. Her grandmother is so full of life
and spirit, I love spending time with her. She is always making me laugh and
feeding me way too much food. This weekend we are going to go shopping for
fabric together and then she is going to make me a winter deel to wear for
Tsgaan Sar this year. Gerlee and I then went to Rebecca’s ger for a girls’
night. Last weekend was full of celebrations and went by so quickly!
At
work, I have just been studying for the GRE, working on my grad school apps and
personal statements for each school. I have decided to apply to UAlbany, George
Washington University, Boston University, Drexel, NYU, Hunter and Yale (the #1
Public Health Program in the country, may be a far reach but they have a close
relationship with Peace Corps and have a fellowship program for former Peace
Corps volunteers, so you never know) for my Masters in Public Health with a
concentration in Community and International Health Education. I am so ready
and excited to start this next part of my life! I have put most of my projects
on hold until Nov. 22 when I take the GRE and submit my applications, and then
I will get back to really concentrating on my trainings here in Mongolia. One
thing at a time and lucky for me most of my counterparts are on vacation or
busy auditing all their own work, so they are not interested in working on
anything else as well. The only project I am actively working on is starting a
Health Club at one of the local schools in my town with my site mate Rebecca.
We have some great ideas that we will be pitching to the school doctor and a
few English teachers at her school. Hopefully they will want to be involved!
Our first topic we want to address is Anger management/ aggressive behaviors.
There seems to be a lot of physical fighting in her school among the students,
so we want to first start with that and show them ways to positively express their
anger and how to discuss problems instead of punching one another. So we are
now developing lessons and trying to incorporate self esteem and positive mental
health practices into them.
11/6/2014
Today,
I found out that I was chosen to be an IST (In Service Trainings) Trainer for
the new group of PC Health Volunteers. IST happens three months into service at
your permanent site and is a time when Peace Corps brings all volunteers and
one counterpart each, to a week-long training. During IST you have trainings
all day that are aimed at helping you to succeed at your host country agency
and help foster relationships between you and your counterpart. All the
trainings are conducted in English and Mongolian allowing everyone to
participate in the discussions. It is a great time to start developing projects
with CPs especially because you will have someone there that can help translate
your ideas to your counterpart. My IST experience was amazing and helped me to
understand what my Health Department wanted out of me and how to work with the
doctors at my Health Department, I hope that the new volunteers will find their
IST just as valuable. Health IST this year happens during Thanksgiving, so
unfortunately I will not be with my site mates to celebrate, but I will be with
the new volunteers and some of my fellow M24s who are also trainers at a nice
hotel (hello running water and showers), so I think it will be just fine! I will go in 3 days early to plan the
trainings with Peace Corps staff, which coincides perfectly with my GRE test
date. I already planned on being in UB those days anyways, so once again
everything works out perfectly!
11/9/2014
Yesterday, one of the new
volunteers who lives in a soum about two hours from here came in to do some
food and clothes shopping. I of course volunteered to keep her company while
shopping. I ended up buying three new pairs of camel wool socks in fun colors,
they are amazingly warm. I saw these winter boots I must have in the market, so
Monday I will be going back to buy them. They are black leather (cow) and have
this grey fur, which the lady told me was from wolf, but I think it must be
goat, who knows, once my site mate bought boots and they told her it was dog
fur on them. They are kind of combat-esque in style. I am obsessed with them. They
also have these zip on leather parts that make them thigh highs. The minute I
saw them I was forming outfits in my head, flannel and jeans, it would be very
rocker grunge. I can only imagine how warm they will be to walk around in this
winter! We all then came back to my ger to watch Clueless, eat ramen and share
movies on our externals.
Today, Patrick, Rebecca and I went
on a hunt for birch bark. Mongolians often use birch bark to start their fires
so I went with them to gather birch for their ger stoves. It was so much fun running
around the fields and up the mountains. I was a pro at finding trees that were
dry and the bark was easy to rip off. Who knew finding bark would be so much
fun! We decided to make Sundays the day we go to gather bark. We then hiked to
the top of one of the mountains and sat and chatted on the big rocks. I can’t believe
this is my last winter here! I am going to miss all these crazy adventures so
much.
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